Antony and Cleopatra (77 page)

“No. I suffer for your tribulations, cousin, but I fail to see what my appearance has to do with anything.”

“Appearance is the fulcrum upon which my career has turned.

You’re not a Roman and you haven’t been brought up a Roman. You are a foreigner.” Octavian leaned forward, his eyes blazing. “Let me tell you why the Romans, a pragmatic and sensible people, deified Gaius Julius Caesar. A most un-Roman thing to do. They
loved
him! It has been said of many generals that their soldiers would die for them, but only of Gaius Julius Caesar that all the people of Rome and Italia would have died for him. When he walked the Forum Romanum, the alleyways and stews of Rome or some other Italian city, he treated the people he encountered as his equals—he joked with them, he listened to their small tales of woe, he tried to help. Born and brought up in the slums of the Subura, he moved among the Head Count as one of them—he spoke their argot, he slept with their women, he kissed their smelly babies and wept when their plights moved him, as often happened. And when those conceited, unmitigated snobs and money lovers murdered him, the people of Rome and Italia couldn’t bear to lose him.
They
made him a god, not the Senate! In fact, the Senate—led by Marcus Antonius!—tried every way it knew to crush Caesar worship. Without success. His clients were legion, and I inherited them together with his wealth.”

He got up, came around his desk to stand in front of the troubled-looking youth, stared down at him.

“Let the people of Rome and Italia set eyes on you, Ptolemy Caesar, and they will forget everything else. They will take you to their hearts and bosoms in a frenzy of joy—and I? I will be forgotten overnight. The work of fourteen years will be forgotten. The sycophantic Senate will suck up to you, make you a Roman citizen, and probably gift you with the consulship the next day. You will rule not only Egypt and the East, but Rome, undoubtedly in any form you choose, from
dictator perpetuus
to
rex
. Divus Julius himself began to soften up our
mos maiorum
, then we three Triumvirs softened it up even more, and now that I have ejected Antonius from all hope of rivalry, I am the undisputed Master of Rome. Provided, that is, that neither Rome nor Italia sets eyes on you. I fully intend to rule Rome and her possessions as an autocrat, young Ptolemy Caesar. For Rome at last is in just the right condition to embrace autocratic rule. If the people saw you in Rome, they would accept you. But you would rule as your mama has trained you—as a king, sitting on the Capitol dispensing justice, Minos at the gates of Hades. You see nothing wrong in that, for all your liberal programs of reform in Alexandria and Egypt. Whereas my rule will be invisible. I will wear no diadem or tiara to proclaim my status, nor will I allow my dear wife to queen it. We will continue to inhabit our present house and let Rome think she governs democratically. That is why you must die. To keep Rome Roman.”

The emotions had chased across Caesarion’s face one after another—amazement, grief, thoughtfulness, anger, sadness, comprehension. But neither confusion nor puzzlement.

“I see,” he said slowly. “I do see, and cannot blame you.”

“Well, you’re the divine Caesar’s actual son, and from all I’ve been told, you’ve inherited his intellectual brilliance. I’m sorry I will never see whether you’ve also inherited his military genius, but I have some very good marshals and fear not the King of the Parthians, whom I intend to conciliate, not attack. One of the cornerstones of my rule will be peace. War is inherently the most wasteful of human activities, from lives to money, and I will not permit the Roman legions to dictate the shape of Rome or who rules her.”

He was talking now, Caesarion sensed, in order to postpone the execution of an execution.

Oh, Mama! Why didn’t you confide in me? Didn’t you know what Caesar’s truly Roman son has just told me? Antonius surely must have, but Antonius was your puppet. Not because you drugged him, or because he was sometimes the worse for wine, but because he loved you. You should have told me. But then again, you may not have seen it, and Antonius may have been too busy proving himself worthy of your love to deem my predicament important….

Caesarion closed his eyes, disciplined himself to
think,
to bend that formidable intellect upon his plight. Was there even the remotest chance of escape? Feeling his belly empty of hope, he sighed. No, there was no chance of escape. The most he could do was make it difficult for Octavian to kill him, rush out of the tent crying that he was Caesar’s son—no wonder Taurus had stared at him! But was that what his father would want from his non-Roman son? Or would Caesar require an ultimate sacrifice from him? He knew the answer, and sighed again. Octavianus was Caesar’s true son by Caesar’s own will and dictate; no mention of his other son in Egypt. And when all was done, what Caesar had prized above everything else in his life was
dignitas
.
Dignitas!
That most Roman of all qualities, a man’s personal share of achievements, deeds, strength. Even in his last moments Caesar had preserved his
dignitas
intact; instead of continuing to fight, he had used the tiny fraction of time he had left to draw one fold of toga over his face, and another down past his knees. So that Brutus, Cassius, and the rest wouldn’t witness the expression on his dying face, or catch a glimpse of his genitalia.

Yes, thought Caesarion, I too will preserve my
dignitas
! I will die owning myself, my face and genitals covered. I will be worthy of my father.

“When will I die?” he asked, voice calm.

“Now, inside this tent. I have to do the job myself, as I trust no one else to do it. If my lack of expertise makes your death more painful, I am sorry for it.”

“My father said, ‘Let it be sudden.’ As long as you bear that in mind, Caesar Octavianus, I’ll be content.”

“I cannot decapitate you.” Octavian was very pale, nostrils flaring as he struggled to discipline his mouth. He produced a twisted smile. “I have not that kind of muscular strength, or so much steel. Nor do I wish to see your face. Thyrsus, hand me that cloth and that cord.”

“How, then?” Caesarion asked, on his feet.

“A sword up under your ribs into your heart. Don’t try to run, it can’t alter your fate.”

“I can see that. More public, but much messier. However, I will run unless you agree to my conditions.”

“Name them.”

“That you be kind to my mother.”

“I will be kind.”

“And my little brothers, my sister?”

“Not a hair of their heads will be harmed.”

“Have I your oath?”

“You have.”

“Then I am ready.”

Octavian draped the cloth over Caesarion’s head and tied the cord around his neck to keep the makeshift hood in place. Thyrsus handed him a sword; Octavian tested the blade and found it sharp as a razor. Then he looked at the earthen floor of the tent and frowned, nodded to the sheet-white Epaphroditus.

“Give me a hand, Ditus.”

Octavian took Caesarion’s arm. “Move with us,” he said, and looked at the white cloth. “How brave you are! Your breathing is shallow and steady.”

A voice that might have been Mark Antony’s issued from under the hood. “Stop chattering and get on with it, Octavianus!”

Four paces away was a bright red Persian rug; Epaphroditus and Octavian moved Caesarion to stand on it, and there could be no more delays. Get on with it, Octavianus, get on with it! He positioned the sword and drove it under and up in one swift stroke with more strength than he had known he possessed; Caesarion gave a sigh and crumpled at the knees, Octavian following him down, his hands still around the ivory eagle because he couldn’t let go.

“Is he dead?” he asked, head twisted to look up. “No, no! Don’t uncover his face, whatever you do!”

“The artery in his neck doesn’t beat, Caesar,” said Thyrsus.

“Then I did it well. Roll him up in the carpet.”

“Let go the sword, Caesar.”

A shock went through him; his fingers relaxed, he let go of the eagle at last. “Help me up.”

Thyrsus had rolled the body inside the rug, but it was so long that the feet protruded. Big feet, like Caesar’s.

Octavian collapsed into the nearest chair and sat with his head between his knees, gasping. “Oh, I didn’t want to do that!”

“It had to be done,” said Proculeius. “What now?”

“Send for six noncombatants with shovels. They can dig his grave right here.”

“Inside the tent?” Thyrsus asked, looking sick.

“Why not? Get a move on, Ditus! I don’t want to have to spend the night here, and I can’t issue orders until the boy is safely buried. Has he a ring?”

Thyrsus scrabbled inside the rug, emerged with it.

Taking it in one hand—good, good, he wasn’t trembling—Octavian stared at it. What the Egyptians called the Uraeus was carved on it, a rearing hooded cobra. The stone was an emerald, and around the edge it said something in hieroglyphs. A bird, an eye drooping a tear, some wavy lines, another bird. Good, it would do. If he had to show it as proof of Caesarion’s fate, it would do. He slipped it into his purse.

An hour later the legions and cavalry were marching again, though not far up the Alexandria road; Octavian had decided to camp for a few days and lull Cleopatra into believing that her son had escaped, was on his way to India. Behind them, where the tent had stood for such a brief time, was an area of smooth, carefully tamped soil; under it, a full six cubits down, lay the body of Ptolemy XV Caesar, Pharaoh of Egypt and King of Alexandria, wrapped in a carpet soaked with his blood.

What goes around comes around, thought Octavian that night in the same tent on different ground, unperturbed by Antony’s victory over his advance guard. That Woman has a legend already, and a part of it is that she was smuggled in to see Caesar wrapped in a carpet. According to Caesar, it was a cheap rush mat, but the historians are turning it into a very fine rug. Now it’s all finished with her hopes and dreams back inside a carpet. And I can relax at last. My greatest threat has gone forever. He died well, though, I have to give him that.

After that debacle on the last day of Julius when Antony’s army surrendered, Octavian decided not to enter Alexandria like a conqueror, at the head of his miles of legions, his enormous mass of cavalry. No, he would enter Cleopatra’s city quietly, unobtrusively. Just himself, Proculeius, Thyrsus, and Epaphroditus—with his German bodyguard, of course. No point in risking an assassin’s dagger for the sake of anonymity.

He left his senior legates at the hippodrome trying to take a census of Antony’s troops and make some sort of order out of a considerable chaos. However, he noted, the people of Alexandria were making no attempt to flee. That meant they were reconciled to the presence of Rome and would be there to listen to his band of heralds when they announced the fate of Egypt. He had heard from Cornelius Gallus, not many miles away to the west, and sent him instructions that his fleets were to bypass Alexandria’s two harbors to anchor in the roads off the hippodrome.

“How beautiful!” said Epaphroditus as the four approached the Sun Gate shortly after dawn on the Kalends, the first day of Sextilis.

And indeed it was, for the Sun Gate at this eastern end of Canopic Avenue was built of two massive pylons joined by a lintel, very square and Egyptian to any who had seen Memphis. But the colors dazzled in the golden light of the rising sun, the plain white of the stone gilded at this moment every morning.

Publius Canidius was waiting in the middle of the extremely wide street just inside the gate, mounted on a bay horse. Octavian rode alongside him and stopped.

“Do you plan another escape, Canidius?”

“No, Caesar, I’ve done with running. I’m turning myself over to you with just one request. That you honor my courage by making mine a quick death. I could have fallen on my sword, after all.”

The cool grey eyes rested on Antony’s marshal reflectively. “Decapitation, but no flogging. Will that do?”

“Yes. Will I remain a citizen of Rome?”

“No, I am afraid not. There are still some senators to cow.”

“So be it.” Canidius kicked his horse in the ribs and moved to ride on. “I’ll turn myself over to Taurus.”

“Wait!” Octavian cried sharply. “Marcus Antonius—where is he?”

“Dead.”

The grief washed over Octavian more strongly and suddenly than he had expected; he sat his striking little creamy Public Horse and wept bitterly while the Germans gazed around Canopic Avenue in wonder and his three boon companions wished they were somewhere else.

“We were cousins, and it need not have come to this.” Octavian mopped at his eyes with Proculeius’s handkerchief. “Oh, Marcus Antonius, you poor dupe!”

The ornate wall of the Royal Enclosure cordoned Canopic Avenue off from the jumble of palaces and buildings within it; near its end where it fused into the craggy flank of the Akro, a theater that had once been a fortress, stood the Royal Enclosure gates. Nobody manned them; they gaped open to admit all.

“We really need a guide to this labyrinth,” Octavian said, halting inside to gaze at the splendor everywhere.

As if he could express a wish for anything and have it come true, an elderly man emerged from between two small marble palaces in the Greek Doric style, walked toward them holding a long golden staff in his left hand. A very tall and handsome man, he was dressed in a pleated linen robe dyed purple, belted at the waist by a wide gold affair studded with gems; it matched the collar around his neck, the bracelets on each bare, sinewy forearm. His head was uncovered save by long grey ringlets held in place by a broad band of gold-worked purple tapestry.

“Time to dismount,” said Octavian, sliding to the ground, paved with polished fawn marble. “Arminius, guard the gates. If I need you, I’ll send Thyrsus. Don’t believe anyone else.”